rideforever wrote:When you say "make a case" what this means is to convince others. This is group-think,

Is this really group think? What makes you think so? Could it be just a form of 'group-think' to label others as such who simply see things different than you? That approach is certainly common to many groups. Unless you know specifically how any given person comes to their perspective you are engaged in yet another kind of group-thinking - that is grouping others into a category that satisfies your belief construct.

And curiously, how do you know Tolle makes $200 million a year?

rideforever wrote:ET's $200 million/ a year

Got some references? Or is this too group-think?

Even if this is true, do you see something wrong with it? Isn't making judgments on another's wealth also a kind of group-think, entrained by a collective belief on what another 'should' or 'should not' have - on what is enough and what is too much?

Isn't it far better to live our own lives free of the judgments born of such 'group-think'? How much of what we judge as wrong in life, such as another's money, comes from the assumed truisms of group-think?

I admire your individuality, however - and this is just my opinion - you are not standing on the foundation as you build, it is like "building a house starting at the chimney". Meaning that your tremendous energy and resourcefulness cannot bear fruit until the roots are in the right place. My picture of it is that you could dig straight down (meaning inner work) to the root until you hit bedrock, at which point all the branches will be connecting and start blossoming together. And this is just my opinion.

I get triggered by you, I am not sure why ... and so I was negative towards you. And I am sorry about that; and I will try to avoid interacting with you from now on.

I was proud, and I demanded the finest teacher
.. .. and when he appeared
.. .. .. .. I was so small

WW :
Point 1 : yes many groups like that ... and to be enlightened is to be individual.
Point 2 ($200M) : I have got no idea ! Someone else mentioned this figure.
Point 3 : opening up your intelligence is to risk finding out something you don't like ... but fearlessness in the face of new information is to align yourself with the essence of existence. It is one further step on the path to total undefendedness.

I was proud, and I demanded the finest teacher
.. .. and when he appeared
.. .. .. .. I was so small

Tolle's message is out.
There is little more of substance to be said about it.
If the seed fell on ready ground it may sprout and grow.

But it is out of Tolle's hands now -- always was and will ever remain so.

It is, in my opinion, a good thing if he has become an Oprafied millionaire.

It bears testament to the fact that there are no "gurus" in this world, only human beings, who will all tend to grasp at the brass ring on the merry go round when they believe they are within reach of it.

Tolle is "one of us" not a "special being" and one need look no further than his "commercial success" for proof of that fact.

Tolle and you and Jesus are all within This Same Oneness that Is the Allness and Totality of Identity---There is no other going on here. There is Only One. So, Tolle and his money and books and his 'awakeness' or unawakness is all taking place with in You. Nothing exists without This Totality of All That Is.

Back on page 3 of this thread the subject of Jesus and religions come up; Jesus always spoke from the Highest View which is that All is One Self-Kowing Identity. This is why Jesus says "no one comes to the Father except through Me" He is not speaking of himself as the body or a person in a certain location in time named Jesus, he is speaking from the view that There is no Other Self than This One I Am -- He says you cannot get there except through Me because there is Only One Me being You and being Him. Since there is no other then I can say
there is only one I can come to the Truth (the Father, Reality) except through Me---How else can I do this, but through me, myself, This Self that is The Only Self going on here. How else can I Live and Know the Truth but through Me.

There is only One Self going one Here. Your Identity is this This That Is All That Is and You include within Your Self a man called Tolle and his books and you include the man named Jesus and his teachings, and you include all the religions going this way or that, and you include the left and the right and wars and happy days singing in the rain. They are all aspects of Your Self. One that includes an infinite, Illimitable view of Its Self. .

It's all within Me --Since Jesus knew There is Only One Identity then how else could Jesus have said that, there is no other here, never, not any one else besides This One Self and This Awareness That is Allness of All That I Am. I include a lot of things from the Pleiades to the moon to the farthest edges of the Universe, to every grain of sand and every tree and blade of grass---All within this Life I Am, One All Inclusive Self. But I do not include another Self or another Awareness There is Only One Single and Only Identity and it has nothing to do with bodies and their given names.

I am That I Am. Before the world was I Am.

When we See and Be our True Selfhood which is the Infinite, Unbound All. My Identity is All That I Am---How else could a wise man say it; he would say there is no way to come to the Living Truth (the Father) except through Me; there is no other we can get there 'through'---

So, celebrate and enjoy the Allness of Your Being and perhaps you can see you are not your body, you are the Presence that includes all bodies and one of those bodies is named Tolle. What he has or does not have is irrelevant because really the Only Here is The One You Are and You and Tolle is the Same One You Are.

You are not finished, until you play in that meadow and live there. You can, you know. But only you can take yourself there.

domokato wrote:Money is form. We play in form. There's nothing bad about Eckhart having money. It doesn't say anything about his teachings or credibility. Most of the arguments used against him in that thread are very weak and written by people who seem to be biased against him for some reason.

That being said, I will now address the more relevant criticisms in this thread:

Hugh Manatee wrote:well, that idea can help you feel good when a bus splashes water on you from a dirty street. It might help induce non-reactivity. It might help as well if you're cruising around in your new BMW and maybe feeling a little guilty for the extravagance of it all. "you know, I really DO deserve the BMW...I mean, I was contemplating a Ferrari...so...yeah."
[...]
If you can't see how Tolle's "philosophy" lends itself SO readily to perversion and apathy...feel free.

Non-reaction is not apathy. Getting angry because you were splashed does not help anything. If you don't want to get splashed next time, don't walk so close to the street or whatever. And if you can't avoid getting splashed, then accept that this is so. Getting angry about it only wastes your energy.

Hugh Manatee wrote:the children starving in Darfur? right, they too are receiving (by NOT receiving) what is most beneficial for the evolution of their consciousness?

Again, Tolle does not promote apathy. If you want to help those in Darfur there is nothing stopping you. Tolle's point is that everything you come in contact with in the world is an opportunity for you to bring your consciousness to the fore. Tolle also admits that people who spend most of their time just trying to survive unfortunately don't really have any extra time to spend to try to awaken. But if we want to help them we can.

Hugh Manatee wrote:He's using a vehicle that IS TOTALLY dependent on FORM, CONTENT, STRUCTURE, DEADLINES, CONTRACTS and MORE! MORE!! MORE!!!!!

And HE wants to remove the "egoic structures" of other people? well, of course, it makes it harder to see through his absolute bullshit.

Removing the egoic structures makes it easier to see through bullshit. Yes, the vehicle he is using to promote his books is form. Everything in the world is form. We play in form. There's nothing wrong with form.

The Anticult wrote:To someone who has looked at these types of things for a very long time, its clear that Eckhart Tolle is a fraud.
An intellectual fraud who does not recognize his sources.
[...]
A scientific fraud as his comments about Evolution are simply wrong.
An ethical fraud as he is out to make a ton of cash and hides his past history, and makes false claims.

What more does the guy have to do?

He does recognize his sources. His teaching is from his own experience combined with his sources, and he presents it as such. He uses the word "evolution" but he does not mean "evolution" in the biological sense, but in the more general sense of change/progression. Making money is not bad in itself. Does Tolle really hide his past history? I always thought he said enough about it and didn't delve into details as they would probably be boring and detract from what he's trying to say.

I'll stop here. I don't feel like going through all 11 pages

It's sad reading stuff like this.

I used to make excusses for greedy enlightened people. But not any longer.

I now feel that greedy enlightened people cause more suffering in this world than you would imagine.

If there be a God or reincarnation I'm sure they will come back as a thousand straving children.

Make no mistake, the harm they do is immense, it doesn't matter what "truth" they write or speak of. Their life is what matters. Anyone can say lines of "pointers". The true God-Man has a life full of example. Beauty that reverberates throughout creation.

Jesus wrote:I now feel that greedy enlightened people cause more suffering in this world than you would imagine.

If there be a God or reincarnation I'm sure they will come back as a thousand straving children.

Make no mistake, the harm they do is immense, it doesn't matter what "truth" they write or speak of. Their life is what matters. Anyone can say lines of "pointers". The true God-Man has a life full of example.

A true 'God-Man' would likely not be so critical, simply because God does not judge Himself in the same way as the imagined self of ego so readily does. And unless one knows the purposes of life and reincarnation, can one honestly say they know what 'surely' would be meaningful experience to any given soul?

Such harsh judgment reveals far more about the one judging than it does about Tolle or anyone of wealth.

I'm not trying to be critical here. I'm simply trying to bring clarity to the emotionally charge misperception of another's life. You cannot know what is valuable to anyone's life experience when you are righteously judging them as wrong.

All life experience is valuable from the soul perspective - even our acts of criticism and judgment. In the experience of separation from others by virtue of our judgment upon them, it still makes for useful grist for the evolution of consciousness in the greater experience of being. The choice is whether we can make useful distinctions while yet in human form, or if we remain blinded until the veil of limitation is lifted at our physical death.

If one will be a God-man, that one will see beyond petty judgments of right and wrong in the experience of another and see only the true loving essence within all of creation.

The first thing I read was that this was from a cult recovery forum. It seems to me that it is possible that these people are superimposing Eckhart Tolle onto their own negative experiences of cults and projecting these negative experiences onto him. Criticisms of Tolle or whoever don't bother me so much. They'll always be there, considering Tolle is "threatening" other people's beliefs.

My 'main' activity' is in another forum in which, among other things, I started a thread called "Tolle's Shift-Pertinent Perspetive" in which I posted extensive quote/transcriptions from Tolle's A New Earth, 'aiming' to broaden the perspectives of participants there, as I found what Tolle expressed in the book very meaning-full and very well-stated.

I had and wrote-noted small differences between Tolle's 'view' and mine as I went along.

However, when I came to the section on THE EGO AND THE PRESENT MOMENT, I felt/thought I needed to make a more 'point'ed commentary regarding why I thought I had to present a more specific 'critique' pertaining to where and how I 'saw' Tolle's view (pertaining to the subject of Ego) was, as I put it, "too presumptuous" (IMO).

I thought that some here might be interested in considering the 'issues' I raised and 'points' I made in relation to them in said post. Please keep in mind if and as you read through it that this was said to readers in another basically-quite-unrelated-to-Tolle's-shtick forum.

A few comments regarding the word 'ego' which isn't always used to reference the same thang (IMO) to possibly precude overly simplistic interpretations and/or misunderstandings of what he says therein before proceeding to transcribe additional material from Tolle's A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose:

Tolle, for instance, IMO all too presumptuously, says things like:

The ego can never be in alignment with the present moment, which is to say, aligned with life, since its very nature compels it to ignore, resist, or devalue the Now. Time is what the ego lives on. The stronger the ego, the more time takes over your life. Almost every thought you think is then concerned with {the} past or future, and your sense of self depends on the past for your identity and on the future for its fulfillment. Fear, anxiety, expectation, regret, guilt, {and} anger are the dysfunctions of the time-pound state of consciousness.

There are three ways in which the ego will treat the present moment: as a means to an end, as an obstacle, or as an enemy. Let us look at them in turn, so that when this pattern operates in you, you can recognize it – and decide again.

To the ego, the present moment is, at best, only useful as a means to an end. It gets you to some future moment that is considered more important, even though the future never comes except as the present moment and is therefore never more than a thought in your head. In other words, you are never fully here because you are always busy trying to get elsewhere.

The way I 'see' it, however, what he is talking about it here is what Freud references as the 'id' part of one's personality, which consists of one's pre-'conditioned'-by-past-ex-peer-ience, 'drives', i.e. of bio-logic-ally 'ensconced' instincts. What he references as the 'ego' (frequently characterized, by some at least, as the 'observing ego') is more akin, IMO, to what Tolle references as 'awareness', which looks to 'see' what the probable-'reality' of any given moment-point embedded in the 'fabric' of one's past-present-future actually is, serving an en-able-ing function in terms a person's choice/decision-making.

Though said 'ego' (if and as it is not 'in charge', so to speak) may indeed just be a 'slave' to one's 'id'-ish 'drives' and the 'steerings' of what Freud labeled the 'superego' (i.e. one's socially-conditioned, personality-horse-'guiding' reins), it, potentially at least, can/may help mediate between such (personality-ensconced) influences, as well as, ultimately at least, completely 'free' one from 'mindlessly' being so influenced and, again ultimately at least, fully able to operate along the lines of what Freud called 'the reality principle', i.e. to make truly 'rational' choices based on one's ego's integrated 'sense' of past-present-n-future possibilities/probabilities, wherein one 'sees' one's 'id' and 'superego' for what they are (i.e. preconditionings) instead of being 'dominated' by either of them. A farmer's choosing to change his planting patterns to include new/different crops and the time(s) of their planting in to accommodate changing soil conditions and/or weather patterns would be an example of his/her 'ego' operating in accord with said 'reality principle'.

Much depends on whether the 'ego' aspect of one's personality functions as a 'slave' or as a 'master' ( to TM-David) in relation to the 'id' and/or 'superego' aspects of said personality, IOW. What I have often labeled 'ego'-MANIA, which in the extreme amounts to what may be thought of as MADness and/or INSANE-ity, is a function of 'slavishness', wherein the 'observations' one's 'observing ego' or 'awareness' are commandeered to the point where one loses 'true'-reality-perspective by instinctual 'drives' and/or social-approval-n-disapproval 'indoctrination'.

My aim and hope in presenting the above is that readers will reread the preceding post in which Tolle presents his 'view' of what the 'ego' is about, as well as the following (soon to come) posts of material from A New Earth with such distinctions in mind.

For now, I will just 'close' this piece by saying that 'pure' 'awareness' of what is in one's ex-peer-iential 'field' in any present 'moment' alone does not and so will not provide one with sufficient information to make maximally beneficial, i.e., wise, practical/functional decisions pertaining to whatever choices may then and there be available.

Toodle-loo for now.

I don't 'hang out' in this forum on a regular basis, but I'll make another fly-by, maybe in a week or so, to how, if at all, peeps here relate to what's said below and care to verbally respond.

Webwanderer wrote:Such harsh judgment reveals far more about the one judging than it does about Tolle or anyone of wealth.

I'm not trying to be critical here. I'm simply trying to bring clarity to the emotionally charge misperception of another's life. You cannot know what is valuable to anyone's life experience when you are righteously judging them as wrong.

BTW, IMOyourcharacterization of said commentary as being a 'harsh' 'judgment' strikes me as being ''harshly' 'judgmental' itself. Along the lines of what you also say, I wonder what that says about you?

In my view, the 'point' which was being emotionally expressed was that the 'acts' (writings, sayings, etc.) of self-proclaimed and so-called 'enlightened' folks who were 'greedy' in terms of status-etc.-seeking often resulted in 'harm'. Do your disagree with that, o' presuming-to-be-more-righteous-than-the-person-you-responded to, Bro?

quote="Webwanderer"]All life experience is valuable from the soul perspective - even our acts of criticism and judgment. In the experience of separation from others by virtue of our judgment upon them, it still makes for useful grist for the evolution of consciousness in the greater experience of being. The choice is whether we can make useful distinctions while yet in human form, or if we remain blinded until the veil of limitation is lifted at our physical death.

If one will be a God-man, that one will see beyond petty judgments of right and wrong in the experience of another and see only the true loving essence within all of creation.

WW[/quote]
The thought comes to mind that it might be 'good' if you took your own advice, Bro.

Davidsun, in your 'harsh criticism' of me as you are suggesting is demonstrated by the quote of mine you highlighted, could you point out exactly where you perceive the 'harshness'?

Below is the quote from Jesus where my statement came from:

Jesus wrote:
I now feel that greedy enlightened people cause more suffering in this world than you would imagine.

If there be a God or reincarnation I'm sure they will come back as a thousand straving children.

Make no mistake, the harm they do is immense, it doesn't matter what "truth" they write or speak of. Their life is what matters. Anyone can say lines of "pointers". The true God-Man has a life full of example.

It's hard to imagine this statement is less than harsh stemming from what Jesus believes as 'greedy enlightened people'. Wishing they will come back as a thousand starving children is quite something to wish for. Consider the blindness of such a statement. If he's 'sure' the greedy enlightened will come back as starving children, how does he know that all the starving children of today aren't just reincarnated greedy people? Such certainty would suggest such a possibility.

davidsun wrote:BTW, IMO your characterization of said commentary as being a 'harsh' 'judgment' strikes me as being ''harshly' 'judgmental' itself.

You certainly have a right to your opinion. But I would like to suggest a distinction. Jesus is obviously in some kind of emotional pain over the issue. Children starving, while his perception of 'greedy enlightened people' live well and prosperous while they 'should' (in his view) be doing more to feed those children. Thus his emotional attack and certainty they will pay for their actions with a future life of starvation.

For my part, I felt little negative emotion on the matter at all. Such anger at another's wealth is common however, and frequently gets expressed as some form of righteous indignation. I mostly saw in Jesus someone hurting themselves by their expressed anger in a forum that would not influence a single greedy enlightened person - if such a person does (or even could) exist. (Greedy and enlightened referring to the same person seems to be a bit of an oxymoron.)

In this forum I consistently encourage clarity through alignment with one's true nature, one's inner beingness. And while wishing pain and suffering on another is often born of anger, it is clearly not an element of true alignment. Saying something harshly negative about another, in light of the Source Essence that enlivens every living being, is indicative that the person seeing in this way is not clear on their own Essence. So how could they know the heart of another without knowing their own?

As is my inclination, I often refer one to one's own condition or state of clarity. Any statement anyone makes about another usually says more about the one making the statement than it does about the other. How could it be otherwise? It's always a statement of personal perception first, and a statement of fact... well, maybe.

Looking inward offers one the opportunity to explore one's own belief structures. To me, that always seems to be a good idea. Beliefs masquerade as truths. Faulty beliefs lead to faulty perspectives and often to faulty judgments. If we feel strong negative emotions towards a matter, those emotions are telling us that something we believe is not in alignment with our own true nature, our Source being. It is likely that only through looking inward will we regain the clarity that is inherent in alignment and free us from those faulty beliefs that create such havoc in our lives.

So again, what you, and I, and Jesus, say about another usually says more about us than it does about the other.

Webwanderer wrote:So again, what you, and I, and Jesus, say about another usually says more about us than it does about the other.

I would say 'often' because it is notas (over?-)generalizing as 'usually'. Otherwise, I am in total agreement with what you say, WW.

Reprise: Youcharacterized the post of the person you were responding to as reflecting 'harsh' 'judgment'. I was suggestively reflecting saidcharacterization 'back' 'onto' you (as being 'harshly' (unduly?) 'judgmental'). And I suggested you practice what you preached in relation to the person you were responding yourself instead.

P.S. I 'see' labeling/calling someone else's actions 'harsh' and 'judgmental' as being an expression of a kind of 'harsh' 'judgment' in itself. Clearly you 'see' that same 'act' differently. Because I can imagine one being informed that one was 'seen' in the way I 'saw' you to be a disconcerting experience, I appreciate the self-justification and non-appreciation of the above re-communicated 'view' and 'suggestion' expressed in your response.